Thursday, June 19, 2014

Political correctness

When I was in high school in the late 1960s and college in
the early 1970s, I thought that US laws banning or discriminating against the
Communist party were hypocritical.

On the one hand, I had read enough of Karl Marx's writings
and other communist authors to recognize that although some communist ideals
were admirable, Marx' prescription for achieving those ideals through the
dictatorship of the proletariat was severely flawed. Studying economics,
religion, and psychology in college confirmed that assessment, as did an even
cursory and second-hand knowledge of life in the Soviet Union, China, and other
communist countries.

On the other hand, the US Constitution promises freedom of
the press, freedom to gather with people of one's own choosing, and implicitly
recognized the right to one's own thoughts. Laws banning or discriminating
against the Communist party seemed incompatible with those Constitutional
rights and unnecessary, given the problems inherent in Marxism. I was confident
that the vast majority of Americans would firmly reject Communism, no matter
how attractive they found some of its rhetorical flourishes or promises.

Redbaiting and hating achieved its high water mark through
the incendiary and bigoted bombast of Joseph McCarthy, a Republic Senator from
Wisconsin. Sadly, most politicians, including President Eisenhower, lacked the
moral courage to challenge McCarthy's denunciation of Americans as Communists frequently
without his having substantial evidence to justify those claims. Thankfully, a
couple of key Supreme Court decisions combined with shifting public opinion
against the excesses led to McCarthy's downfall. The Communist Party retains,
some seven decades later, its unpopularity in this nation. Both the fall of the
Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union's demise incontrovertibly underscore the
ideological and political bankruptcy of Communism.

I do not support the BCF nor do I agree with many of its
doctrinal positions. The BCF is an evangelical Christian group that began after
I graduated from Bowdoin and is affiliated with Inter-Varsity. Among my
disagreements with the BCF are my strong support for same-sex relationships and
my affirmation that Christianity is one of many valid, vital spiritual paths.

However, ending official recognition of the BCF, which will
prevent the BCF from being an official part of campus life and having access to
campus facilities, is hypocritical. Bowdoin promotes itself as a bastion of
liberal education. Liberal education should connote space in which to explore
ideas, even those that many regard as wrong or silly.

In my long service as a Navy chaplain, I staunchly defended
the right of people from widely divergent faith traditions to gather in spite
of opposition from conservative Christian elements and sometimes from the chain
of command. Never once did I, or any command with which I served, find that
protecting religious freedom diminished unit morale or mission effectiveness. Fears
of those adverse consequences were always overblown. Sailors and Marines
generally had too much good sense to succumb to the blandishments and
enticements of even the most disliked religious groups.

Similarly, I have found that the best antidote to allegedly Christian
but in fact silly versions of Christianity—whether the prosperity gospel of TV
evangelists like TD Jakes or narrow-minded fundamentalism of groups like
Inter-Varsity—consists of lovingly but persistently offering an alternative Christian
vision. Persons receptive to weighing the merits of their ideas and values
willingly engage in genuine dialogue, regardless of their current beliefs.
Other persons must test alternative ideas and values for themselves by
subscribing, at least temporarily, to those ideas and values, a process that is
a normal part of human maturation. Most people eventually develop a set of
ideas and values that enable the person to function as a reasonably healthy and
productive member of their community.

When a community has a steadily increasing number of young
adults who fail to develop the ideas and values requisite for a reasonably healthy
and productive lifestyle, then the community's elders and larger society should
become alarmed. The community is rapidly becoming dysfunctional and alienated,
signs of social disintegration. In the US, those signs of social disintegration
are evident in some segregated inner city neighborhoods in which unemployment,
out of wedlock births, single parents raising children, and multi-generational
dependence upon welfare are all dramatically increasing. The signs of social
disintegration, including high rates of alcoholism, have also been evident on
Native American reservations for generations.

Bowdoin College (and most other bastions of political
correctness!) does not exhibit any of those warning signs. Bowdoin is an
academically elite institution that draws the majority of its student body from
America's privileged class. The cost of enforcing political correctness by banishing
groups whose ideology one finds offensive, whether because of their religious
fundamentalism or political extremism, is therefore hypocritical and
self-defeating. Exposing students to the BCF and its woefully inadequate and
unjust interpretation of Christianity denies Bowdoin students a valuable
opportunity to test the waters, to explore different ideas, and to appreciate
more fully why liberalism rightly endorses diversity and pluralism, confident
that most people will reject narrow-minded prejudice in favor of respect for the
dignity and worth of all.

For those not persuaded by my confidence in people, that
confidence is the basic premise of democratic governance: most people will
generally choose wisely.